58 articles
Hybrid perovskite-silicon solar cells have reached power conversion efficiencies over 34%, far surpassing conventional silicon panels at 24%. The first commercial versions are expected to reach the market in 2026.
The World Health Organization has verified Chile as the first country in the Americas, and only the second globally, to eliminate leprosy — a landmark public health achievement decades in the making.
Compass Pathways reported positive results from Phase 3 trials of COMP360, a synthetic psilocybin treatment for depression, potentially making it the first psilocybin-based medication approved in the U.S.
Paul Thomas Anderson's black comedy "One Battle After Another" won six Oscars at the 98th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, celebrating bold and original filmmaking.
A new AI system published in Nature can diagnose rare diseases by integrating clinical data, genetic information, and medical literature searches. The system provides its underlying reasoning, helping doctors understand its conclusions. For patients who often wait years for a diagnosis, the technology could dramatically shorten the diagnostic odyssey.
Research shows the shingles vaccine may double as a heart protector, cutting major cardiac events by 46% and deaths by 66% within a year in people already at high cardiovascular risk.
The journal Science named the global renewable energy surge its 2025 Breakthrough of the Year. For the first time, renewables surpassed coal as a source of electricity worldwide, with solar and wind growing fast enough to cover the entire increase in global electricity demand in the first half of the year.
Quilen Blackwell was named CNN's 2025 Hero of the Year for his nonprofit Southside Blooms, which transforms vacant lots in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood into flower farms. The "farm-to-vase" operation employs 25 at-risk youth aged 16-25 and ships flowers nationwide, with a second location opening in 2026.
Ireland became the first country in the world to make a basic income scheme for artists permanent. The €25 million program provides €325 weekly stipends to over 2,000 artists and has generated an estimated €100 million in social and economic benefits, proving that investing in creativity pays dividends for society.
Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klaebo won six gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics — a new single-Games record. The Games were also the most gender-equal Winter Olympics ever.
The FDA approved Neffy, the first needle-free nasal epinephrine spray for children aged 4 and older. The breakthrough represents the first major update to emergency allergy treatment in over 30 years, eliminating the fear and complexity of injectable epinephrine for the one in 13 children affected by food allergies.
Form Energy began manufacturing iron-air batteries at scale in 2025, enabling multi-day energy storage of up to 100 hours. The batteries use iron — one of the most abundant and cheapest metals on Earth — and literally breathe air to store and release energy through a reversible rusting process.
Negara Nazari, an Afghan refugee living in Tajikistan, won the prestigious UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award for co-founding the Ariana Learning Centre, a school providing education to young Afghan refugees who were unable to access local schools. Her work has given hundreds of displaced children the education they were denied.
NOAA deployed a new generation of AI-powered global weather models that significantly improve the accuracy and speed of atmospheric predictions. By integrating machine learning with traditional physics-based modeling, the system offers better lead times for hurricanes, severe storms, and other extreme weather events — ultimately saving lives.
Former MLB executive Kim Ng was named commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, backed by Major League Baseball, becoming the first woman to hold the top position in a U.S. major professional sports league.
The UK Biobank completed over one billion medical scans from 100,000 volunteers, creating the most comprehensive atlas of the human body ever assembled. Early analysis revealed that heart disease and brain disease often co-occur, suggesting cardiovascular health may protect against dementia.
The City of Bloomington, Indiana launched a challenge to log 100,000 volunteer hours in 2026 as part of America's 250th anniversary celebrations. The Volunteer Network connects residents with local nonprofits, turning the national milestone into a community-wide movement of service and civic engagement.
The Bank of England announced that native British wildlife will replace historical figures on banknotes after more than 26,000 people voted in a public consultation to put nature on sterling. The decision marks a historic shift in British currency design, celebrating the country's natural heritage.
The UN High Seas Treaty has come into force, creating for the first time a legal framework to protect biodiversity in international waters — covering almost half of Earth's surface that previously had no dedicated conservation law.
The FDA approved lenacapavir (Yeztugo), a twice-yearly injectable PrEP medication that prevents nearly all HIV transmission. The drug addresses major barriers to daily pill-based prevention, including stigma and adherence challenges, and could transform the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
Stockholm's electric hydrofoil ferry, which lifts above the water on foils to dramatically reduce energy consumption and wave impact, has been declared a success by the Swedish Transport Administration after a pilot evaluation. The vessel cuts energy use by 80 percent compared to conventional ferries.
Chile is pressing ahead with plans to create Cape Froward National Park, spanning 150,000 hectares of subantarctic forests, peatlands, and coastline at the southern tip of the Americas.
Three-time Paralympic medalist Mike Schultz retired from competitive snowboarding after the Milan 2026 Games, but his greatest legacy is BioDapt, the company he founded to build high-performance prosthetic limbs. Today, 95 percent of the world's top lower-limb Paralympic snowboarders compete on his designs.
CNN Hero Heidi Karman founded First Responder Therapy Dogs to address the mental health crisis among firefighters, paramedics, and police officers. Since 2021, her organization has certified over 500 therapy-dog teams across 46 states, supporting more than 150,000 first responders in managing chronic stress and trauma.
The High Seas Treaty entered into force in January 2026 after Morocco became the 60th country to ratify it in September 2025. The landmark agreement establishes the first legal framework to protect marine biodiversity in international waters, covering nearly two-thirds of the world's oceans that were previously ungoverned.
Sodium-ion batteries, made from abundant materials like salt, are emerging as a cheaper, safer alternative to lithium — poised to power affordable electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage worldwide.
A new professional women's softball league launched in June 2025, financially backed by Major League Baseball. Former MLB executive Kim Ng was named commissioner — the first woman to hold such a position for any U.S. major league. The league will transition from a barnstorming tour to city-based teams in 2026.
CrossSense Ltd won the £1 million Longitude Prize on Dementia with smart glasses that learn the daily routines of people with dementia and provide gentle prompts, helping them live safely and independently at home.
The sihek, or Guam kingfisher, is flying free in the wild for the first time in over four decades after being declared extinct in its natural habitat. A small but stable population has been established on a predator-free island, and the birds have begun laying eggs — a critical milestone for the species' recovery.
Portugal generated 80.7 percent of its electricity from renewable sources in January 2026, ranking second in Europe behind Norway's 96.3 percent. The achievement demonstrates that large-scale renewable energy transition is achievable for Southern European nations and validates Portugal's aggressive clean energy investment strategy.
The UN General Assembly proclaimed 2026 the International Volunteer Year for Sustainable Development, recognizing that 2.1 billion people — 34.5% of the global working-age population — volunteer every month.
Brazil's national space research institute INPE reported that deforestation in the Amazon rainforest fell by 50% in 2023 compared to the previous year, the sharpest annual decline in decades, following the restoration of environmental enforcement under President Lula.
After withdrawing from most events at Tokyo 2021 to prioritize her mental health, Simone Biles returned triumphantly at the 2024 Paris Olympics, winning three gold medals and one silver to become the most decorated Olympic gymnast in history.
DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs launched AlphaFold 3, which can predict the 3D structure of proteins, DNA, RNA, and drug-like molecules with unprecedented accuracy, potentially transforming how new medicines are developed.
Dozens of juvenile hybrid giant tortoises were released on Floreana Island in the Galápagos on February 20, 2026, marking the return of these iconic creatures nearly 150 years after they were hunted to local extinction. The rewilding effort aims to restore the island's ecosystem to its original state.
Brandon Scarborough's Dreams Academy in Akron, Ohio walks with young Black boys who face challenges like fatherlessness, growing from a mentorship model into an all-boys school designed to help students see themselves as leaders.
An international consortium published over 21 papers mapping more than 3,000 cell types in the human brain, creating the most detailed atlas of the organ ever produced and opening new avenues for treating neurological diseases.
The 2024 World Happiness Report ranked Finland first for the seventh straight year, with researchers attributing the success to high social trust, strong public services, low corruption, and a culture that values work-life balance.
Heman Bekele, a 14-year-old Ethiopian-American student from Virginia, was named TIME's 2023 Kid of the Year for developing an affordable soap-based skin cancer treatment that could provide accessible melanoma prevention in developing countries.
When 4-year-old Brinley aimed a flashlight at a construction site across from Cleveland Clinic, the workers shone their lights back — sparking a heartwarming friendship of daily messages, gifts, and cheers.
Researchers at Harvard and MIT demonstrated error-corrected quantum computing using 48 logical qubits on a 280-qubit processor, a major milestone toward practical quantum computers that could revolutionize drug discovery and materials science.
Several humpback whale populations have recovered to near pre-commercial whaling numbers, with some groups removed from endangered lists, marking one of the greatest conservation comebacks in wildlife history.
South Korean author Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life," becoming the first Korean writer to receive the honor.
David, a young Nigerian immigrant, volunteered to walk his elderly neighbor Frank's dog — sparking a cross-generational, cross-cultural friendship that evolved into David becoming Frank's caregiver.
The World Health Organization certified Egypt as malaria-free in October 2023, making it the third country in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region to achieve this milestone after decades of sustained public health efforts.
Engineers at MIT have created a passive solar desalination system that converts seawater to drinking water using only sunlight, with no electricity or filters needed, at a cost competitive with tap water in many developing countries.
Ireland's basic income scheme for artists, launched during the pandemic, has been made permanent. The program gave 2,000+ artists €325 weekly and generated €100 million in social and economic benefits.
The SELECT trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that semaglutide (Wegovy) reduced major cardiovascular events by 20% in overweight adults, marking the first time a weight-loss drug demonstrated direct heart-protective benefits.
The California condor, which numbered just 22 birds in 1982 when all remaining wild individuals were captured for a breeding program, has surpassed 500 individuals with over 300 now flying free in the wild across California, Arizona, Utah, and Baja California.
A major randomized trial in Sweden involving over 80,000 women found that AI-assisted mammography screening detected 20% more breast cancers than traditional double reading by two radiologists, while nearly halving radiologists' workload.
Climeworks opened its Mammoth facility in Iceland in 2024, the world's largest direct air capture plant capable of removing up to 36,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually — ten times the capacity of its predecessor.
Kenyan runner Kelvin Kiptum broke the marathon world record at the 2023 Chicago Marathon, finishing in 2 hours and 35 seconds — 34 seconds faster than the previous record — becoming only the third man in history to complete an official marathon in under 2:01.
The Afghan Girls Robotics Team, forced to flee after the Taliban banned girls from secondary education, has continued to win international robotics competitions from exile in Qatar, becoming global symbols of resilience and the fight for girls' education.
A staggering 80.7% of Portugal's electricity in January 2026 came from renewable sources, placing the country second in Europe for clean energy generation — a remarkable achievement for the Iberian nation.
Japan's grassroots "kodomo shokudo" movement — volunteer-run community cafeterias that provide free or low-cost meals to children — has grown to over 9,000 locations, transforming from a niche initiative into a nationwide social safety net.
Following initial approvals in Singapore and the United States, cultivated meat — real animal protein grown from cells without raising or slaughtering animals — has received regulatory clearance in additional countries, signaling a shift toward sustainable protein production.
Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film for "The Boy and the Heron" at the 2024 Oscars, his second Oscar and the first for a hand-drawn anime film in 21 years.
Brazil hosted COP30 in Belém — the first UN climate summit in the Amazon — and launched the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a new funding platform that rewards countries for maintaining their forests.
